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What goes bump in the night.


patback

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Story goes like this....

 

Florida gulf live rock goes in the tank. Never added more rock, and the tanks been up since September/ October.

 

10 gallon tank, "nano sized" rock.

 

I originally thought my pistol shrimp dragged a snail underneath some rock work, but how could a snail be stuck/ make loud noises for a week straight without dieing or being eaten by my shrimp? I checked that possibility off of my metaphorical list. Next, I assumed tht my pistol was rearranging rubble to reinforce walls, but it is very loud and I was able to check this off of the list also when I heard the noise at the same time my shrimp was out In the open. I thought for a split second that my pump was hitting glass, but cancelled that out when I unplugged everything and still heard it.

 

On top of the noises, every so often I see a large amount of bubbles come up from underneath/ behind my rocks. ( my rocks do not move during the noise or the bubble action) I have tapped, knocked, damn-straight shook my tank and during all of this, the sound continued. It is mostly at night, but is heard sometimes in te daylight. Somebody help me out, a mantis would leave a mess, and I can't see not witnessing anything like this in the past 5 months. (all though idid find that thing in the thread "what in gods good name is this" just a few days ago)Any ideas?

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Have you ever seen " Hillbilly handfishing" just put your finger under the rock and wait when it bites TADA you got your critter. No really wouldn't do that my buddy was moving new LR around and got nailed by a large crab,funny ( for me ). Sounds like mantis.

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How could a mantis just lay dormant without me noticing it for 5 months though? My largest piece of rock is a little bigger than softball size with many teeny tiny holes. Do mantis shrimp generally have a "sping cleaning" mode when all of a sudden they go crazy at work?

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Hey pat....you see the tiger pistol in my avatar....I didn't find him for almost 5-6 months the one day boom he was out eating pellets..

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Hey pat....you see the tiger pistol in my avatar....I didn't find him for almost 5-6 months the one day boom he was out eating pellets..

+1

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I just got a tiny mantis out of my cube a few weeks back.

It didn't make any noise for the first month then one night it started up.

 

take a small black light and look over your tank in the middle of the night, that is how I found mine.

 

I used this

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Sounds great. Have any ideas on how to trap it? I heard they are quick, and obviously elusive , since I am yet to see it. ;)

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Sweet I'm in jersey. I'll throw you a frag or two also if you meet me. Pm me when you get the little bugger.

Damn I gave mine to the LFS lol.

 

As for trapping it, good luck.

All my traps failed I ended up pulling the rock he was in and dunking it in freshwater.

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dunking it in freshwater.

 

^ that as a last resort, but try the trap with the coke bottle he may go for it. But then again he may be smart and get back out.

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^ that as a last resort, but try the trap with the coke bottle he may go for it. But then again he may be smart and get back out.

mine only ever got snails

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I had a similar problem to this for quite a while with this new tank I've got running. For several weeks I kept hearing a knocking sound. Almost like something tapping or knocking on the rock. Convinced that I had a Mantis, I went through the tank and examined all the rockwork and rearranged it in the process. Haven't heard it since. If I have one, he must be tiny. None of my rocks are any bigger than a grapefruit, but they're pretty dang porous.

 

No Mantis has shown his face yet...

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Still nothing. When I put up my LEDs I think I may move some rocks around more, so I will do as thorough a search as possible sometime next week.

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ParrotHead251

I remember a while back reading a post about some type of worm that actually bores through live rock making a crunching/scraping sound, primarily at night. If I remember correctly, the guy tore down his rockwork and found the sucker, and it was over six feet long...

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Chances are you have a small pistol shrimp. I had a candy cane pistol paired with a goby when I first set up my 14G nano 2 years ago. Well a year ago it crashed hard. All died.

 

Long story short, it became my mantis tank when I got it back to healthy. Just broke it down and moved the mantis and other livestock to my new starphire 40B. Found my candy cane pistol chill-in running around on the sand when I removed the rocks..... I thought he died a year ago..

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